The impact of type of language and number of reasons on purchase intent

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

In many industries, as competition gets more intense, differentiation becomes increasingly more important and brands need to communicate their product advantages. There are many different ways of communicating product benefits, and many firms choose to use very specific technical terms in their communication. An experiment was conducted, replicating a real decision making situation, using claims with daily versus technical language and manipulating the Number of Reasons presented to support the product’s benefit. Then, Purchase Intent was measured according to the claim used. Results indicate that, for low involvement products, the use of technical terms without explaining them, as well as presenting one versus two reasons, has no impact on Purchase Intent. Results are discussed.